Jean-Michel Bismut - Böcker

This book presents the analytic foundations to the theory of the hypoelliptic Laplacian. The hypoelliptic Laplacian, a second-order operator acting on the cotangent bundle of a compact manifold, is supposed to interpolate between the classical Laplacian and the geodesic flow. Jean-Michel Bismut and Gilles Lebeau establish the basic functional analytic properties of this operator, which is also studied from the perspective of local index theory and analytic torsion. The book shows that the hypoelliptic Laplacian provides a geometric version of the Fokker-Planck equations. The authors give the proper functional analytic setting in order to study this operator and develop a pseudodifferential calculus, which provides estimates on the hypoelliptic Laplacian's resolvent. When the deformation parameter tends to zero, the hypoelliptic Laplacian converges to the standard Hodge Laplacian of the base by a collapsing argument in which the fibers of the cotangent bundle collapse to a point. For the local index theory, small time asymptotics for the supertrace of the associated heat kernel are obtained.The Ray-Singer analytic torsion of the hypoelliptic Laplacian as well as the associated Ray-Singer metrics on the determinant of the cohomology are studied in an equivariant setting, resulting in a key comparison formula between the elliptic and hypoelliptic analytic torsions.

This book uses the hypoelliptic Laplacian to evaluate semisimple orbital integrals in a formalism that unifies index theory and the trace formula. The hypoelliptic Laplacian is a family of operators that is supposed to interpolate between the ordinary Laplacian and the geodesic flow. It is essentially the weighted sum of a harmonic oscillator along the fiber of the tangent bundle, and of the generator of the geodesic flow. In this book, semisimple orbital integrals associated with the heat kernel of the Casimir operator are shown to be invariant under a suitable hypoelliptic deformation, which is constructed using the Dirac operator of Kostant. Their explicit evaluation is obtained by localization on geodesics in the symmetric space, in a formula closely related to the Atiyah-Bott fixed point formulas. Orbital integrals associated with the wave kernel are also computed. Estimates on the hypoelliptic heat kernel play a key role in the proofs, and are obtained by combining analytic, geometric, and probabilistic techniques.Analytic techniques emphasize the wavelike aspects of the hypoelliptic heat kernel, while geometrical considerations are needed to obtain proper control of the hypoelliptic heat kernel, especially in the localization process near the geodesics. Probabilistic techniques are especially relevant, because underlying the hypoelliptic deformation is a deformation of dynamical systems on the symmetric space, which interpolates between Brownian motion and the geodesic flow. The Malliavin calculus is used at critical stages of the proof.

This monograph addresses two significant related questions in complex geometry: the construction of a Chern character on the Grothendieck group of coherent sheaves of a compact complex manifold with values in its Bott-Chern cohomology, and the proof of a corresponding Riemann-Roch-Grothendieck  theorem.  One main tool used is the equivalence of categories established by Block between the derived category of bounded complexes with coherent cohomology and the homotopy category of antiholomorphic superconnections.  Chern-Weil theoretic techniques are then used to construct forms that represent the Chern character. The main theorem is then established using methods of analysis, by combining local index theory with the hypoelliptic Laplacian.Coherent Sheaves, Superconnections, and Riemann-Roch-Grothendieck is an important contribution to both the geometric and analytic study of complex manifolds and, as such, it will be a valuable resource formany researchers in geometry, analysis, and mathematical physics.

This monograph addresses two significant related questions in complex geometry: the construction of a Chern character on the Grothendieck group of coherent sheaves of a compact complex manifold with values in its Bott-Chern cohomology, and the proof of a corresponding Riemann-Roch-Grothendieck theorem.

The book provides the proof of a complex geometric version of a well-known result in algebraic geometry: the theorem of Riemann–Roch–Grothendieck for proper submersions. It gives an equality of cohomology classes in Bott–Chern cohomology, which is a refinement for complex manifolds of de Rham cohomology. When the manifolds are Kähler, our main result is known. A proof can be given using the elliptic Hodge theory of the fibres, its deformation via Quillen's superconnections, and a version in families of the 'fantastic cancellations' of McKean–Singer in local index theory. In the general case, this approach breaks down because the cancellations do not occur any more. One tool used in the book is a deformation of the Hodge theory of the fibres to a hypoelliptic Hodge theory, in such a way that the relevant cohomological information is preserved, and 'fantastic cancellations' do occur for the deformation. The deformed hypoelliptic Laplacian acts on the total space of the relative  tangent bundle of the fibres. While the original hypoelliptic Laplacian discovered by the author can be described in terms of the harmonic oscillator along the tangent bundle and of the geodesic flow, here, the harmonic oscillator has to be replaced by a quartic oscillator.   Another idea developed in the book is that while classical elliptic Hodge theory is based on the Hermitian product on forms, the hypoelliptic theory involves a Hermitian pairing which is a mild modification of intersection pairing. Probabilistic considerations play an important role, either as a motivation of some constructions, or in the proofs themselves.